


let all be quiet in your head

by zenithaurora



Series: Aang Week [6]
Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Aang Week 2021, Canon Relationships, Found Family, Gen, POV Aang (Avatar), Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-28
Updated: 2021-02-28
Packaged: 2021-03-12 11:15:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,179
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29758797
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zenithaurora/pseuds/zenithaurora
Summary: "You have indeed felt a great loss. But love is a form of energy, and it swirls all around us.  The Air Nomads' love for you has not left this world. It is still inside of your heart, and is reborn in the form of new love."Several years after visiting Guru Pathik, Aang comes to a realization.
Series: Aang Week [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2174718
Kudos: 13





	let all be quiet in your head

Dinners were never a quite affair in their home, especially on the rare occasion they managed to gather all the members of their family in their dining room. With the addition of their newest member to their group, baby Suyin, they had decided it was the perfect excuse to meet and celebrate at their home.

The last sunbeams of the day pierces through the windows, permeating through the room with a warm amber glow over the kitchenware and the tablecloth. Condensation levitates to the air, heightening the strange mixture of spicy, salty, and sweet smells of the food and drinks on the table. Such blend of scents should not mesh so well, but it manages to be pleasant, and it brings a strange sensation of calm over his body.

There is something lingering in the atmosphere that he cannot quite pinpoint, like a shift in the world that he just realized, but he is not sure what it could be about.

“—so, I just had deserted the army and a hundred Fire Nation soldiers were over me, asking for my blood and wanting to drag me back with them” Sokka tells a dramatized version of the time he had infiltrated the Fire Nation army.

Tenzin and Lin were looking at him with wide eyes, completely enraptured by the tale told by their uncle. Although the story had been shared with the older kids many times already, it was the first time they had ever heard it.

“How did you escape?” Tenzin asked with a slight tremble and his hands tightly clasped together.

“It’s okay, kiddo”, Sokka pats his shoulder and points his thumb to his chest, “I fought them all”.

In front of him, Katara snorted. “That’s not true; _we_ had to help because oh-so-brave Mr. Fire didn’t want to be send to the frontlines” she mocks him.

His face reddens and he crosses his arms against his chest. “You could’ve lied a little”, he sulks and then he realizes something she said, “and Mr. Fire was brave!”.

The kids cannot stop giggling at the bantering between the siblings.

On the other side of the table, Zuko groans and covers his face. “Don’t remind me of Private Wang Fire, please. I’m begging you”.

“It couldn’t be that bad, right?” Suki argues.

“The Fire Nation army insisted in putting the heroic sacrifice of Private Wang Fire in the history books” Mai deadpans.

Suki laugh only intensifies at the sight of Sokka sinking even further on his seat. She and Katara teams up to poke fun at him, while Zuko and Mai just stare with amusement drawn in the subtle features of their faces.

The strange feeling from before tugs at him again, but he still cannot discern what it could mean.

“Who’s a good baby? You’re a good baby!” Bumi babbles at Suyin, his words merging into an amalgamation of high-pitched gibberish.

“She is a baby, not an idiot” Toph says in a monotonous voice. Suyin shrieks in delight, and Bumi smirks. Izumi and Kya laugh at the scowl on their aunt’s face and feed one of the baby lemurs a piece of moon peach.

Having everyone gathered around one table filled to the brims with dishes and beverages reminds him of the one time he went to Yangchen’s Festival. It was remarkable different; they bowed in front of a statue before walking down a cliff in direction to a secluded meadow while playing traditional music all the way. Then they settled on mats on the grassy ground and munched on traditional Air Nomad food. The circumstances are vastly different, but the sensation has a striking resemblance to that moment. The food is different, but the smell it is just as pleasant. The people are different, but the laughter and incessant chatter it is the same. The place is different, but the serenity that settles in his body feels identical to that moment.

Then a thought pass across his mind, not like a moment that strikes him with brutal force or a realization captured in slow motion, but rather, as a soaring comprehension that settles in his mind. He notices his children and his friends’ children wrapped in innocent play and boisterous laughter like any child and teenager should. A conversation about a new unprecedented project that is meant to start in the city, a person too concentrated on the contents of their plate to get involved in prattle, a parent with an eagle hawk eye watching over the kids, an arm-wrestling match on top of the table, a person cradling a baby in their arms. It finally clicks in his brain what the sensation from before is.

There have been a few times in which he has thought about the words said by Guru Pathik the day he visited the Eastern Air Temple. Although having to face his fears, his regrets, and his mistakes was an exhausting task, he could not deny the wisdom that the guru had to impart. Most of the lessons taught were innate in him by now, and he knew them by heart. However, there were a particular set of words that had stuck with him the most: ‘ _You have indeed felt a great loss. But love is a form of energy, and it swirls all around us. The Air Nomads' love for you has not left this world. It is still inside of your heart, and is reborn in the form of new love’_ he remembers the solemn, but gentle saying from the guru.

His first understanding of the phrase was simple and a motivation going forwards; the love he once held for his nation and his people were reborn in the new love he had for the people he has now. However, as he looks around the table and the family they had formed, as he breathes the peaceful atmosphere they had established, he realizes that, if the Air Nomads’ love has truly not left the world and it is swirling around them in the air, then the love they once felt for him must have been reborn in the love given to him by people sitting around the table.

Nothing it is permanent, but the sorrow it is a sign that he loved and was loved. He is familiar with the grief that tugs at his skin when he breathes and the loss that is patent in every corner he turns, but there is a strange comfort in knowing that all the people in the table speak the same language. The pass of time taught him well; his steps got lighter again with the years and his words flow freely now without the need to deceive himself or others. His heart had come to the understanding that lost souls are no longer ghosts that haunt the narrative and the memories, but rather, voices in the breeze that murmur reassurances. He looks around the people on the table, his eyes lingering on each of them, and smiles at the knowledge that, even with everything he lost, he still has something to hold on.

**Author's Note:**

> Title based on 'Never Quite Free' by The Mountain Goats.


End file.
